Christien

Well, there's a first time for everything, right? Our car was stolen today! Well, actually not ours, my folks' - we traded cars last week for a week or so (they had our daughter so needed the baby seat, and rather than move the seat, we just traded cars).

My wife took it to work today, and sometime between 11:45am and 3:30pm it was stolen from the parking lot! Prime target vehicle, too: 2006 Chevy Trailblazer SS, black, all leather interior, satellite radio, etc. She's a teacher at a school in Ancaster (very affluent suburb of Hamilton). I would've never pegged that lot as a target, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Nice neighbourhood, you know the cars will be there for several hours at a time, and very little traffic after lunch and before the end of school.

So we phoned the police then OnStar. OnStar as of 6:30pm still couldn't locate the car, which means it's gone for good. My company uses GPS tracker/disablers in our financed cars and if we need to locate them we've got it at the click of a mouse in 10 seconds. If there's no response, the unit's offline, which means it's been pulled from the vehicle. At least the insurance company is being good about it - rental car tomorrow morning, no issue with payout (at least not so far).

But man, what a PITA. $100 cash in the car, the baby seat, lots of kids' toys, handheld GPS unit and some jewellery my wife was having cleaned up for a present for her mother's birthday.

Uggh.

Bill N

Hey, Chris, sorry to hear. It's not just a PITA..I imagine it's also a sense of violation.

you scared me with the subject line, though...I feared it might be the Porsche!

OttawaDave

Wow, Chris, bad news. Sorry to hear this. Glad to hear that the insurance is working for you though.

Too bad about the gifts and other stuff in the truck too - hope they'll be covered by your home insurance.

Dave

Christien

Yeah, everything will be covered by our home insurance. I haven't read the policy in years, but I remember having a very low deductible, if anything at all. The only real loss is the sentimental value of the locket (it was Stef's grandmother's, and is probably 70 years old) and the time involved replacing everything.

The more I think about it, the likelihood of a vintage Porsche being stolen isn't actually that high, because it's a really difficult car to sell. An 06 Trailblazer SS will be gone before you can say "OnStar is useless", but a 72 RS-look 911?

I surprisingly don't really feel violated that much. I thought I would. I just feel like more of a statistic. Maybe it's because it's not our car. The only thing that makes me a bit sad is thinking of our little girl's toys in a dumpster somewhere. I'm just hoping we might have forgotten a poopy diaper under the seat somewhere

Christien

If it were the 911, it wouldn't read "OT", it would read "APB" in big bold letters!!

Zeeman28a

Sorry to hear about your loss Christien. Hope things work out for you. At least, no one was hurt.

Dale Gribble

that sucks man....never would have figured that would happen in ancaster, been there a couple of times and its like a small town old timey middle america...everyone knows everyone, neighbors all get along kinda thing.

hoffa

Sorry to hear about the loss. Hope the insurance company continues to be good to you.

Christien

I think that's what makes a school in a neighbourhood in Ancaster a perfect target. Quiet, nobody around in mid-afternoon, lots of nice cars.

Rental car company should be here within the hour to pick me up. We're looking to replace to pimp mobile (aka Ford Explorer) with a new van or SUV soon - with any luck we can at least spend a few days with one of the cars we've narrowed it down to.

RyeHigh

Sorry to hear about the loss Christien.

Quick question for everyone out there.....How easy/difficult is it to break in and steal a 911 by the way.
Same as any other car I would imagine.

When I purchased mind last summer, I thought about getting the Boomerang Tracking system, but in the end I didn't get it, is it worth putting in after all?

Christien

Well, the Trailblazer has remote keyless entry and there was no glass on the ground, so I'm guessing they had some sort of homemade remote device to unlock the car. Either than or it's not hard to pick the door lock. Once you're in, it's not hard to remove the kick panel and get at the wiring for the starter. I know this because this car was the test car for the Passtime GPS tracker/disabler devices we're using in our financed cars. I was there for the installation and removal, and was surprised at 1. how easy it is to get in there and mess around and 2. what a sloppy job the factory does with wiring (electrical tape holding wires together, etc.)

Furthermore, this car was equipped with both OnStar and a factory-installed GPS tracker (completely separate devices, as far as I can tell from stickers in the door jamb and the owner's manual). GM owns OnStar, so my thought is that if you're going to steal a GM car, the first thing you do is take it to an aluminum garage somewhere and pull the OnStar unit out.

The thing is, if you look at stolen car statistics, you see the same cars come up again and again - mostly SUVs and luxury cars. You don't see a lot of Porsches, I think because they're harder to sell quickly.

If you do install any kind of tracking system, don't use it as a theft deterrent device, because it won't help and the thief will just disable it. Hide it as deep inside somewhere as you can and make it as invisible as possible. That way with any luck the thief won't know it's there and thus won't remove it, greatly increasing your chances of locating and recovering the car.

Mamooguy

I've always seen the point of anti-theft devices as being to make things more difficult for potential thieves, make them want to move on to the next car. But let's face it, whatever the make or model, if they really want it they're going to get it.

My story: back in December I had a really annoying situation where the driver's side door wouldn't lock. I was too damn lazy to fix it, and I figured, what are the odds someone's going to know it's unlocked? Especially when the (aftermarket) alarm/keyless entry system was working (flashing light). Well, one day I went down to the garage and realized someone had been inside the car and rummaged through everything. But strangely nothing was missing -- I guess he got interrupted. Lucky thing too, because not only did I have a niceish stereo, a pair of speakers in a box waiting to be installed and a bunch of tools, but a spare set of keys was in the glove compartment. He could've just started 'er up and driven 'er away.

Suffice to say I fixed the door that day (and removed the freakin' keys from the glove compartment).

Christien

Yep. Lesson learned here for me is to never leave anything valuable in the car, period. Especially our daughter! I've left her in there for very brief periods (eg run into the post office to get the mail out of the PO box) with the car off, locked and alarm set. Won't be doing that anymore!

Turbodan

Sorry to be the one to say, but...that is against the law

Christien

Is it? If so, I didn't know. But then again, so's speeding! In any event, it's not something I ever really thought of before, but sure do now.